Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Magic timer for young students who misbehave or drift

I think you are over-generalizing.

From the moment I started, I was totally involved in playing. I saved the moving for swimming, baseball, sports. I hated musical games, workbooks, flash cards and so on. I loathed "musical participation" activities and actually got a bad mark "for not listening to and appreciating music" because of some dumb-*** program a typical musical ed-type teacher had us doing.

And I think you are the exception to the rule.

What "rule"? Again, you are generalizing, and I think your assumptions are beyond ridiculous. I am no more an exception to any "rule" than you are. But I suppose my view is worthless because I don't have, pasted in my sig:

B.A., Piano, Piano Pegagogy, Music Ed.
M.M., Piano

Children are individuals. One size does not fit all. Some children have a problem sitting still. But a lot of them just want to get at it, as I did. Most of my students are like that.

"Definitely"? Why in the world is "sitting on a bench", playing, exploring with the instrument "uninspiring"? Why do they "have to learn to do it, eventually"? You make jumping into actually playing music seem like a punishment.

If a teacher is yakking the whole time, talk, talk, talk, and the child does not get to play, yes, that would be boring. If the lesson is full of theoretical things, if a child is made to sit on a bench, drilling on flash cards, yes that would be boring. I can think of a thousand ways to make lessons for children, especially very young ones, a torture.

But it doesn't have to be that way, and I very much resent your assertion that it does. With your broad statements, you completely negate the work of other teachers who do not teach the way you do. You declare yourself as forum expert and insist that it must all be done your way, in order not to bore the hang out of children.

It's another example of "my way or the highway" where know-it-all teachers don't just present their way of doing things but make out that others who have different ways of approaching teaching are inferior.

I'm sick of it.

Gary you scoundrel! There, you're at it again, making us question our assumptions. If you don't start towing the line, you'll be on second triangle in the 'music is fun' ensemble.



Just out of interest, what age did you start lessons at?

And perhaps, Gary, you have forgotten that this thread is about children who have trouble with staying on task in the music lesson. My comments are completely taking that into consideration. These are the kinds of children that need off-the-bench activities. Their attention is challenged and getting off the bench varies the pace and activity that keeps them engaged.

I'm not looking for a cat fight here.

Any behavior has different solutions (and causes) depending on the child, and a single age does not create a single persona. A behavior does not connote a "kind of child". For example, some children need a lot of stimulus and activity. Other children are driven antsy by too much stimulus, too many changes. These children may be the same age. But the *kind of child* who needs less stimulus will exhibit the same behavior as the *kind of child* who needs lots of stimulus, for opposing causes. And there are even more causes of inattention: inability to understand, fluorescent lights, etc. Then also recently there was the eye-problem - tracking thing. Two things don't make sense to me. One is the idea that there is only one possible cause and solution. The other is that other teachers' solutions are not plausible unless they fit the theory, or that's how it appears. Something seems amiss here.

No, I haven't forgotten. And I'm not in any way suggesting that your ideas are invalid. I'm saying, clearly, that I reject your suggestions/solutions as the ONLY answer. The problem is that "misbehavior" may or not be linked to "drifting". At least half my students drift, lose focus, fidget or show other signs of being bored when the pace is EITHER too slow OR too fast. Too slow=boredom. Too fast=frustation. For students with attention problems, with or without hyperactivity, the road between boredom and frustration is extremely narrow.

I am not ruling out "off-the-bench activities". I am saying that they are not a magic bullet for cases of misbehaving OR drifting, which again are two different things.

Which is about variation and pacing. But there are many ways to vary things and fine-tune pacing at the piano, and for me "off-the-bench activities" means less time actually learning to play.

Exactly. This has to with pacing and variation, and EVERY child is different. Even with the phrase "kind of child" we have already created a box and then but a child IN that box.

"Misbehavior" may be something that happens everywhere, and we as teachers not only have to deal with it but often we are not given information that the parents KNOW as to WHY it is happening.

Or we may see behavior that is being caused by something in the lesson, something we are missing, and in that case I think we are responsible for finding out what is wrong.

By the time we combine "misbehavior" with "drifting", almost anything in the world could cause any combination of both factors.

Exactly. Boredom and frustration may appear the same, but the causes are opposite, unless the frustration is caused by boredom. Apparently my 6th grade general music teacher considered me as a "drifter" and concluded that I did not "appreciate music". When she found out that I was already playing very advanced piano music, her assessment of me totally reversed. She was a nice lady. But she mistook very advanced for disinterested.

Because there is not only one possible cause nor is there one possible solution...

What is amiss is horrible over-generalization...

Oh, please. Child psychology and learning theory is all about generalizations. They are based on average behaviors. Of course there are variations. Every child has some variation. You think I over-generalize. I think you nitpick.

Bottom line is whether the child is bored, misbehaving, drifting, etc., it is up to the teacher to take control of the problem and manage it. So what if the student is a product of bad parenting. You can't control what goes on at home but you sure can control what goes on in your studio. Don't tolerate bad behavior. But don't be lazy and put "boredom, drifting, etc." in the same category as bad behavior. Figure out what you need to do as a teacher to motivate that child. On another note, if you, as a child, are playing Bach inventions or other such pieces, then you probably don't need to do off-the-bench activities. But by and large, young children (ages 4-6) like to, and need to, get off the bench. Marching is a great way to teach them how to keep a steady beat. Why MUST they stay on the bench for 30-45 minutes when there's so much we can do with them? Yes, it takes more energy to teach young children, but to those of you who don't want to get off your chairs, don't teach young kids if you don't have the energy or desire to do it. There's nothing wrong with that. Personally, that timer would have freaked me out as a young student. I would have been so stressed about the minutes ticking away, I wouldn't have been able to focus on my music. But I can see where it would help some kids. I would just be careful about using it as a "one size fits all" solution.

That feels about right. In general my young students seem to transition between six and seven. It is very rare that my students younger than seven take lessons by themselves. At that age I work very hard with a parent to make sure that what happens in lessons can be duplicated, as closely as possible, at home.

I'm on one side, the parent is on the other. We use long colored straws (for pointers), and we change things up quickly. 10 minutes max new things (always playing with the aid of a keyboard chart), 10 minutes on things that are more comfortable, last 10 minutes on whatever they decide are "their favorites".

By around seven almost all of them not only are able to take lessons without the parent but usually ask to do so, and if we have been successful, by that time it becomes very hard for the parent to keep up, which is as it should be.

Opinion noted. See my updated signature...

Actually, I was a late starter at eight, but only because my family could not afford an instrument. I sang, on pitch, about the time I began to speak. I had a tiny record player for very little kids before age 5. Long before I started lessons I was listening to recordings. By age of seven I was fascinated by Finlandia, the Tchaikovsky 4th Symphony, a couple Wagner overtures and the Beethoven 5th Symphony, Toscanini conducting.

That was why I bombed out in 6th grade general music class. They were doing: "The violin's singing, like lov uv uv ly ee ringing", with the no-pitch students trying to sing "the horn, the horn, it wakes me at dawn"--all on one pitch. Then there was "the clarinet, the clarinet, goes doodle doodle doodle doodeldet." I immediately memorized each part, which I am hearing now as I type this, could have sung all of them, but I shrunk away, cringing at the cacaphony.

Minniemay, when I wrote that something seems amiss, I was referring to the impression that you were saying that there is only one cause, one persona to an age group, and therefore only one solution. This cannot have been what you meant, and that is what seemed amiss.

Child psychology and learning theory give broad outlines, but they usually include more than one viewpoint and approach. They also stress variety and the need to observe. What we see too often in education is someone getting a theory or formula, and applying it willy nilly everywhere instead of looking deeply into the particular problem. I'd hate for someone to go "Aha - young kids have to get off the bench - check!" when maybe something else is going on. It's the apparent exclusiveness - one solution - that makes me uneasy. The Internet forces us to write briefly so we don't always give the whole picture. Is that how you meant it?

The wind-up one with the little plastic records, and you could see the grooves in the tracks? I always wanted one of those...

I think that's what it was! I don't remember the wind up part, but I do remember colored records.

That's why we have such discussion forums. We get to discuss different aspects of the same thing. I think that's helpful, especially when we get opposing views.

Maybe it had batteries? I think it was Fisher Price.

They were wind up Fisher Price. Up until about a year ago I still had mine.

Hehehe . . . I had one of those, too!